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I'm not going to present any more routine ideas as the guys have it covered very well. But I just want to give you a little more background on low-volume routines for building up.

A few years back I wrote an article for HG Magazine called "Specialisation". At the time I was fascinated by low volume routines and I used them predominantly to build up my squat and deadlift very quickly. The combination of heavy weights on a limited routine and weight gain ensured I bulked up rapidly and approached weights in the squat and deadlift that anyone would consider heavy for a beginner.

I looked into these specialisation cycles as they were called and found out they were a common tactic used by lifters and writers like Ditillo, Rader, Boone, Davis, Hepburn and many, many natural strength lifters. The bulk of these guys muscle was built on these low volume routines where the only goal was to gain 20-30lbs on their 3-4 favourite pet lifts. Some like Boone would drop as low as 1-2 exercises, as he famously deadlifted each day to something like a 700lbs deadlift weighing little over 180lbs himself.

So anyway, bottom line: Pick 2-4 exercises and decide in a period of 2-3 months you will get as brutally strong as possible in them. Set goals, eat to gain. You might consider doing 6-7 exercises and sure they would provide more balance, but for pure unadulterated focus on a small handful of exercises just 2-4 exercises work extremely well in the short-term. You can train each exercise more often, recovery is improved and will be surprised how quickly you can bump up your strength base with such a narrow focus. After a short 2-3 month specialisation cycle it is recommended you go back to a more rounded full body routine to let your body show it's strength in a wider range of exercises and to have a break.

A little imbalance at this point will not cause any harm, if you don't do Chins/Rows for example won't necessarily hurt you if you have been doing them consistently prior to this short specialisation cycle. Omitting them so you can concentrate on a small handful of exercises will pay big dividends.

Even after reading this if you don't decide to go as low as 2-4 exercises, at least listen to the take home lesson of abbreviation and concentrating on getting strong on a small handful of exercises.

Save the high volume/frequent routines for cutting up. I do think they have tremendous value for fat loss and i'm glad to see more modern lifters using them for that.

I started off with a more rounded Full Body plan where I hit Bench/Squat on the heavy day and Deadlift on the Medium day. Of course each day was filled in with other exercises but they were my focus .. my barometers for progression. (This is an important and often neglected concept by the way, more on this below). So it looked like this:

The abbreviation at that point, allowed me a further 5 weeks of progression. It allowed me to milk the cycle for even more gains! For a solid 5 weeks I did that routine, usually resting one day in between each session.

Overall this lead me to a 300x7 Bench Press, 470x8 Deadlift and 400x7 Squat weighing around 210lbs. These numbers were all rep PRs for me. It's a little hard to quantify exactly how much I had gained as I never really did high reps but sufficed to say I could tell I had gained a lot by the effect on my physique. At a guess i'd say 20lbs or so and these were certainly not beginner gains.

So that's one example. You would choose exercises based on what you enjoy, I would definitely try and cover at least the Bench and Squat. Once that's covered, if you have no competitive aspirations then a Bent Row (done from the floor) would seem to make most sense. Leaving your routine looking something like this:

Day 1: Squat, Bench
Day 2: Overhead Press, Bent Row

Important to note is that at the heart of every routine is this ultra-abbreviated routine. So whatever you decide, whether it's 4 exercises or 8 or 12, you must select a few exercises in each routine which you consider to be the markers of your progression. Focus on them almost entirely for the entire 2-3 months and do not hesitate at all to drop any additional exercises if you feel that will help your recovery for your focus exercises.

with 2-4 exercies do you suggest 2 big lifts and an accessory for each or?I like the 5/3/1 fullbody idea...

You dont really need 5/3/1 tbh, just more weight each session on the bar on the big lifts. SS, Madcow, Starr all have great Linear progression with a small amount of lifts. For me 5/3/1 and the assistance is normally done wrong as people pick the wrong assistance etc etc... Just 2 big compounds per session with One accessory would do you well IMO.

3 lifts, 3 times per week, lots of food and more weight every session.